Backers of Mandatory Helmets for Kids on Ski Slopes Think Gov. Brown Has Rocks in His Head

Governor Jerry Brown has vetoed legislation that would have required skiers and snowboarders under 18 to wear protective helmets.

State Sen. Leland Yee, a San Francisco Democrat and child psychologist, authored SB 105, which had received bi-partisan support in the state legislature.

"Unfortunately, the governor ignored the pleas of parents who were asking for this law and for a simple tool to help get their kids to wear helmets on the slopes," Yee says in a statement released today. "California's ski slopes are perhaps the last area of recreation where we do not have basic safety standards in place for children."

That statement came not from Yee's office but that of the California Psychological Association, which offered this quote from its director:

"We're astonished that Governor Brown vetoed common sense legislation to protect kids and mirror bike helmet laws," said Dr. Jo Linder Crow. "The evidence is clear that the use of helmets can greatly reduce the severity of head injuries resulting in a better recovery process. We are very disappointed that the governor chose to ignore the scientific evidence, the ski industry's support, and the general widespread support that SB 105 received. "

Crow's lobbying group sponsored identical legislation in 2010 that then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed. However, because it was joined to another bill regulating ski industry safety that Schwarzenegger vetoed, SB 105 did not become operative. Thus, the run at Brown.

The Weekly wrote about the bills that were before the Governator here:

Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before "graduating" to OC Weekly in 1995 as the paper's first calendar editor. He has contributed as a freelance editor and writer to several publications and been the subject of or featured in several reports online, in print and on the radio and television. One of countless times he returned to his Costa Mesa, CA, home with a bounty of awards from a journalism competition, his wife told him to take out the trash.